Gaut Gurley

D. P. Thompson

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• Publié par: shewyur
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 70
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gaut Gurley, by D. P. Thompson #2 in our series by D. P. Thompson Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: Gaut Gurley Author: D. P. Thompson Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7087] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 9, 2003] Edition: 10 Language: English *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GAUT GURLEY *** Produced by Wendy Crockett, David Moynihan, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.GAUT GURLEY; OR, THE TRAPPERS OF UMBAGOG. A TALE OF BORDER LIFE. BY D. P. THOMPSON,CONTENTS CHAPTER I. Town and Country contrasted, in relation to Vice and Crime.—A Display Party to avoid Bankruptcy.—Gaut Gurley, and other leading Characters, introduced as Actors in this scene of City Life. CHAPTER II. Retrospect of the life of the Country Merchant, in making Money, to become a "Solid Man of Boston."—Humble Beginnings.—Tempted into Smuggling from Canada in Embargo times, and makes a Fortune, by the aid of the desperate and daring Services of Gaut Gurley.—A Sketch of the Wild Scenes of Smuggling over the British line into Vermont and New Hampshire.—Removal to the City. CHAPTER III. Gambling (an allegory) invented by the Fiends, and is proclaimed the Premium Vice by Lucifer.—A Gambling Scene between Gaut Gurley and the merchant, Mark Elwood.—The Failure of the latter.—The Refusal of his brother, Arthur Elwood, to help him.—The Surprise and Distress of his Family. CHAPTER IV. The Downward Path of the Habitual Gambler.—His Family sharing in the Degradation, and becoming the suffering Victims of his Vices.—The Sudden Resolve to be a Man again, and remove to an unsettled Country, to begin Life anew in the Woods. CHAPTER V. The moral and intellectual Influences of Forest Life.—Scenery of Umbagog.—Description of Elwood's new Home in the Woods.—The Burning of his first Slash.—His House catches Fire, and he and his Wife engage in extinguishing it, praying for the return of their Son, Claud Elwood, to help them in their terrible strait. CHAPTER VI. Claud Elwood and his Forest Musings.—Dangerous Assault, and slaying of a Moose.—Rescue of Gaut's Daughter from the enraged animal.—Strange Developments.—Incipient Love Scene.—Trout-catching.—Return of Claud and Phillips (the Old Hunter here first introduced), to aid in saving the Elwood Cottage from the fire.—The Thunder-shower comes to complete the conquest of the fire.—The destruction of the King Pine by a Thunderbolt. CHAPTER VII. Journey up the Magalloway, to bring home the slaughtered Moose.—Love and its entanglements; its Sunshine now, its Storms in the distance. CHAPTER VIII. Jaunt of Claud and Phillips over the Rapids to the next Great Lake, for Deer-hunting and Trout-catching.—Rescue of Fluella, the Indian Chief's Daughter, from Drowning in the Rapids.—Her remarkable Character for Intellect and Beauty. CHAPTER IX. The Logging Bee.—The introduction of a New Character in Comical Codman, the Trapper.—The Woodmen's Banquet.—The forming of the Trapping and Hunting Company, to start on an Expedition to the Upper Lakes. CHAPTER X. Developments of the dark and designing character of Gaut Gurley.—-Tomah, the college-learned Indian. CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Elwood's Bodings, on account of the connection of her Husband and Son with Gaut and his Daughter.—Her Interview with Fluella.—Claud's Interview with Fluella and her Father, the Chief.—The Chief's History of his Tribe. CHAPTER XII. Adventures of the Trappers the first day of their Expedition up the Lakes.—Bear-hunt, Trout-catching, etc.—Introduction of Carvil, an amateur Hunter from the Green Mountains.CHAPTER XIII. The Trappers' Central Camp on the Maguntic Lake.—Three Stories of most remarkable Adventures in the Woods, told at the Camp-fire by three Hunters and Trappers. CHAPTER XIV. The Voyage to Oquossah, the farthest large Lake.—The stationing of the Trappers at different points on the Lake.—The appointment of Gaut as Keeper of the Central Camp, on the Lake below.—The Results of their Fall's Operations, and Preparations to return Home. CHAPTER XV. The Trappers overtaken by a terrible Snow-storm.—Their Suffering before reaching Central Camp.—The discovery that this Camp had been Burnt, and Robbed of their whole Stock of Furs.—Their Providential Escape from Death. CHAPTER XVI. The Legal Prosecution to Recover their Furs, or punish Gaut, the supposed Criminal.—The unsatisfactory Result, and Gaut's dark menaces of Revenge. CHAPTER XVII. Gaut's Efforts to get the old Company off into the Forest, on a Spring Expedition.—All refuse but Elwood and Son, who conclude to go.—Love Entanglements, and the boding Fears of Mrs. Elwood. CHAPTER XVIII. Opening of Spring in the Settlement.—The Trappers fail to Return.—Gaut comes without them.—The Alarm and Suspicions of the Settlers that he has Murdered, the Elwoods.—The Circumstantial Evidence. CHAPTER XIX. The attempt to Arrest Gaut.—His retreat to a Cave in the Mountain.—His final Dislodgement and Capture, for Trial and Examination. CHAPTER XX. Retrospect of the Adventures of Gaut and the Elwoods.—The Murder of Mark Elwood, and the Wounding of Claud, by Gaut.—Claud's life saved by Fluella. CHAPTER XXI. Gaut's Trial, Sentence, and Imprisonment.—General Denouement of the Story.—Gaut breaks Jail, escapes, and becomes a desperate Pirate-leader. SEQUEL. Awful Fate of a Pirate Ship.—Gaut's Death.CHAPTER I. "God made the country and man made the town." So wrote the charming Cowper, giving us to understand, by the drift of the context, that he intended the remark as having a moral as well as a physical application; since, as he there intimates, in "gain-devoted cities," whither naturally flow "the dregs and feculence of every land," and where "foul example in most minds begets its likeness," the vices will ever find their favorite haunts; while the virtues, on the contrary, will always most abound in the country. So far as regards the virtues, if we are to take them untested, this is doubtless true. And so far, also, as regards the mere vices, or actual transgressions of morality, we need, perhaps, to have no hesitation in yielding our assent to the position of the poet. But, if he intends to include in the category those flagrant crimes which stand first in the gradation of human offences, we must be permitted to dissent from that part of the view; and not only dissent, but claim that truth will generally require the very reversal of the picture, for of such crimes we believe it will be found, on examination, that the country ever furnishes the greatest proportion. In cities, the frequent intercourse of men with their fellow-men, the constant interchange of the ordinary civilities of life, and the thousand amusements and calls on their attention that are daily occurring, have almost necessarily a tendency to soften or turn away the edge of malice and hatred, to divert the mind from the dark workings of revenge, and prevent it from settling into any of those fatal purposes which result in the wilful destruction of life, or some other gross outrage on humanity. But in the country, where, it will be remembered, the first blood ever spilled by the hand of a murderer cried up to Heaven from the ground, and where the meliorating circumstances we have named as incident to congregated life are almost wholly wanting, man is left to brood in solitude over his real or fancied wrongs, till all the fierce and stormy passions of his nature become aroused, and hurry him unchecked along to the fatal outbreak. In the city, the strong and bad passions of hate, envy, jealousy, and revenge, softened in action, as we have said, on finding a readier vent in some of the conditions of urban society, generally prove comparatively harmless. In the country, finding no such softening influences, and no such vent, and left to their own workings, they often become dangerously concentrated, and, growing more and more intensified as their self-fed fires are permitted to burn on, at length burst through every barrier of restraint, and set all law and reason alike at defiance. And if this view, as we believe, is correct in regard to the operation of this class of passions, why not in regard to the operation of those of an opposite character? Why should not the same principle apply to the operation of love as well as hate? It should, and does, though not in an equal degree, perhaps, apply to them both. It has been shown to be so in the experience of the past. It is illustrated in many a sad drama of real life, but never more strikingly than in the true and darkly romantic incidents which form the groundwork of the tale upon which we are about to enter. It was on a raw and gusty evening in the month of November, a few years subsequent to our last war with Great Britain, and the cold and vapor-laden winds, which form such a drawback to the coast-clime of New England, were fitfully wailing over the drear and frost-blackened landscape, and the wayfarers, as if keenly alive to the discomforts of all without, were seen everywhere hurrying forward to reach those comforts within which were heralded in the cheerful gle